By Ryan Dombal on July 1, 2009 at 1:00 p.m. EDT

It's tough to know what indie rock touring is like unless you've actually roughed it cross-country in the back of a dingy van, hitting up questionable diners at 4 a.m. and sleeping wherever you can. But the new book/DVD set The Art of Touring is here to give laymen a multimedia simulacrum of life on the road.

Published by Yeti (which is run by Pitchfork contributor Mike McGonigal), the 156-page tome was edited by former Erase Errata member Sara Jaffe and former Electrelane guitarist (and Pitchfork contributor) Mia Clarke. It features artwork courtesy of the likes of Devendra Banhart and members of Times New Viking, the Ponys, and Au Revoir Simone, written pieces from Le Tigre's Johanna Fateman and Matmos's Drew Daniel (also a Pitchfork contributor) and more, and photography courtesy of Yeah Yeah Yeahs' Nick Zinner, Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore, and Explosions in the Sky's Munaf Rayani, just to name a few. The DVD is filled with live and backstage footage of the Ex, Mecca Normal, Erase Errata, the Jeffrey Lewis Band, Electrelane, and others.

Even better, a third of the profits from the sales of the book will be donated to the Musicians' Emergency Fund administered by the Jazz Foundation of America.

By Ryan Dombal on June 25, 2009 at 2:55 p.m. EDT

By Tom Breihan on June 15, 2009 at 4:05 p.m. EDT

Back in February, we mentioned a limited-edition book of photos that photographer Pat Graham had taken of Modest Mouse. Well, Graham has been snapping shots of the band since 1996, so he's got a whole lot more photos where those came from. Graham is publishing a series of limited-edition Modest Mouse photozines collecting archival snapshots and new images.

Graham has collaborated on these zines with RAEN Optics, who will be selling them exclusively. The second issue, pictured above, will ship on July 4, and you can order it here. Check below for sample photos and more info.

By Tom Breihan on June 11, 2009 at 4:40 p.m. EDT

Superchunk's Mac McCaughan and Laura Ballance founded Merge Records in a rented home office in 1989. 20 years later, Merge is one of the biggest and best indies in America. The label is home to Arcade Fire and Spoon and Conor Oberst, and it has certifiable classics like Neutral Milk Hotel's In the Aeroplane Over the Sea and the Magnetic Fields' 69 Love Songs in its catalog. That's a story worth celebrating, and it's a story that's going to be celebrated.

By Tom Breihan on June 9, 2009 at 1:45 p.m. EDT

Before Touch and Go, the groundbreaking indie label, there was Touch and Go, the Midwestern hardcore zine. Meatmen leader Tesco Vee and non-Meatman Dave Stimson founded the zine in Lansing, Michigan in 1979, starting a label under the same name a few years later. The zine ran for four years, covering the emergence of America's hardcore scene. Touch and Go gave page space to the likes of Black Flag, Minor Threat, the Misfits, and eventual Touch and Go label signees like Negative Approach and the Necros.

Next year, Bazillion Points will reissue the zine's entire 22-issue run in a softcover book (via the Daily Swarm). So we'll all get to see whether the actual printed words match up to the zine's legendary rep. If nothing else, it'll make for a fascinating time capsule. So many of these bands have been enshrined in the punk rock canon, and it'll be fun to see what people had to say about them when they were just scuzzy kids in vans.

By Tom Breihan on June 8, 2009 at 1:05 p.m. EDT

New Order and Joy Division bassist Peter Hook has written a tell-all book, Hacienda: How Not to Run a Club, about the legendarily debaucherous Manchester club the Hacienda. (Or, more accurately, he's co-written it with New Order/Joy Division biographer Claude Flowers.) This book, if it comes out in its intended form, will basically be The Dirt or Hammer of the Gods for people who wear anoraks. (Amazon.co.uk has it listed as being published on October 5 by Simon & Schuster.)

However, there's a chance this book just might be TOO juicy. In an epic, two-part post on his MySpace blog, Hooky shares the work of some poor lawyer, who was tasked with going through the entire book and detailing all the things he wrote that may or may not constitute libel. "Thought it read almost as well as the book," Hook says of the lawyer's letter. Too bad all of the names are redacted!

The letter from the lawyer includes all sorts of tantalizingly incomplete pieces of info like:

"Check that XXXXX did use a lot of Nazi stuff. It looks as if it is very much a matter of record."

"xxxxxx wielding a machete â€“ check that this can be proved but it looks as if this may have been admitted in an interview."

"The road crew would not seem to be easily identifiable but might not XXXXXXXXXXXXXX complain about the shag in the bus reference â€“ something which might be a little difficult to prove if she did complain?"

"Check about the drill story." (My own personal favorite!)

The whole list is definitely worth a perusal, especially if you assume that virtually every "XXXX" refers to Shaun Ryder.

So now we know what won't be on the album...but nobody's sure about what will be on it just yet, aside from a slew of self-proclaimed "high caliber" beats from Mr. West. No word on a release date, but hopefully Jay can wrap things up before heading out on a mini-tour this July. A killer summer single would be nice. No pressure.

In other Kanye news, MTV reports that the impresario's recent motivational book with marketer/philosopher J. Sakiya Sandifer, Thank You and You're Welcome, is due out in stores July 7. (It was previously only available online.) While promoting the book, he's also promoting his "non-reader" lifestyle with quotes like this one from Reuters: "I am a proud non-reader of books. I like to get information from doing stuff like actually talking to people and living real life." I love Kanye, but shit like that is not helping.

By Tom Breihan on May 27, 2009 at 1:40 p.m. EDT

-- It's that time again: The new issue of Yeti, the zine/journal published by Pitchfork contributor Mike McGonigal, is out now. As ever, Yeti #7 comes with a CD jammed with rare and unreleased material from a whole mess of artists. This one includes Crystal Stilts, the Dutchess and the Duke, Woods, Grouper, and Nodzzz.

-- A Camp, the country-pop group led by onetime Cardigan Nina Persson and Shudder to Think guitarist Nathan Larson, have worked their magic on songs by Pink Floyd, David Bowie, and Grace Jones. The resulting digital-only covers EP, cleverly titled Covers EP, will be available on iTunes via Nettwerk on June 9. It'll go to all other digital stores on June 16.

-- The Seaport Music Festival, the remarkably pleasant free outdoor music series at New York's South Street Seaport, will kick its season off on July 3 with sets from Here We Go Magic and Bachelorette. Superchunk, Polvo, Blank Dogs, Black Moth Super Rainbow, and the Pains of Being Pure at Heart are among the bands playing later in the summer. (Side note: Hit up the seafood place in the upstairs food court to get gigantic and cheap styrofoam cups of beer.)

By Tom Breihan on May 13, 2009 at 2:40 p.m. EDT

-- California fractured beat-freak Flying Lotus and British dubstep producer Joker have teamed up for a new split 12" single, out now on Tectonic. It's not a full-on collaboration like that Burial/Four Tet single; Flying Lotus' track is called "Glendale Galleria" and Joker's is untitled.

-- Former Guided by Voices member Tobin Sprout has pulled a Madonna and written and illustrated a children's book. Titled Elliott, it's out now on Mackinac Island Press, and it concerns the adventures of a magic rabbit who leaves his magician's hat. Aww! (via Largehearted Boy)

-- On June 23, Partisan will release Born on Flag Day, the latest LP from Brooklyn-via-Providence alt-folkers Deer Tick. Next month, they'll head out on tour opening for Jenny Lewis. Brian Williams is amped!

-- Later this month, the Stag & Dagger festival will go down on three different days in three different UK cities: May 21 in London, May 22 in Leeds, and May 23 in Glasgow. Cold War Kids, the Mae Shi, the Twilight Sad, Cursive, Evan Dando, Vivian Girls, Lovefoxxx from CSS, and a whole mess of other bands will play.

Also this week, Byrne has released a digital EP on his website, with a wider digital release to come in June. The four-song live set, titled Everything That Happens Will Happen on This Tour, David Byrne on Tour: Songs of David Byrne and Brian Eno is just that: tracks recorded on Byrne's current world tour, highlighting songs from last year's Eno collaboration album Everything That Happens Will Happen Today. Net profits from the EP will go to Amnesty International. The songs on the EP are "One Fine Day," "My Big Nurse," "I Feel My Stuff", and "Strange Overtones."